LABOUR MP Diane Abbott has said Keir Starmer treated her like a “non-person” during a row over racist comments made about her.
Comments made by Tory donor Frank Hester emerged in March, with Abbott saying she expected “more support” from her party.
The Guardian first reported that Hester said in 2019: “It’s like trying not to be racist but you see Diane Abbott on the TV, and you’re just like I hate, you just want to hate all black women because she’s there, and I don’t hate all black women at all, but I think she should be shot.”
'They were determined to get rid of me' Diane Abbott tells ITV News about her candidacy battle with Labour after she was suspended by @Keir_Starmer https://t.co/0kCkwaTycR pic.twitter.com/i9jHQk8TDF
— ITV News Politics (@ITVNewsPolitics) September 17, 2024
Hester has since apologised for his remarks, which Abbott said left her feeling in danger particularly given the deaths of MPs Jo Cox in 2016 and Sir David Amess in 2021.
Abbott said Labour “never reached out to me personally and did treat me as a non-person”.
“If somebody was threatening to have you shot, you would have felt your party would have offered you more support, giving you advice on safety and security, even kind of commiserated with you. And none of that happened,” she said.
A spokesperson for Labour said the Prime Minister has “great respect” for Abbott and that it was “simply wrong to say there was any plan being pushed by the leadership to force her out”.
Suspension comments
Abbott, who is the first black woman to become an MP, told BBC Newsnight, also said that her suspension from the party over alleged antisemitic comments was a “move against me” as Starmer hoped to “finish his clear out of the Labour left”.
The MP withdrew remarks she made in a letter to the Observer in which she suggested Jewish, Irish and Traveller people were not subject to racism “all their lives”.
In May, Newsnight revealed the investigation had been completed in December but Abbott was not told whether she would be allowed to stand for Labour in the General Election.
She said she felt “very low” and “depressed” during the inquiry because she felt the party was trying to “get rid of me altogether as an MP”.
Abbott continued: "I think that Keir Starmer wanted to finish his clear-out of the left in the parliamentary Labour Party and by writing a very ill-advised letter, I gave him the opportunity to move against me.
"And I think what they were trying to do was to string out and string out the investigation. So when a general election is around the corner, they could just move me out of the way as a Labour candidate because I wouldn't be in the parliamentary Labour Party, and they would parachute in somewhere else".
However, she said she was offered a deal through a “third party,” which would have seen her stand down ahead of the election.
"I think the idea was that they would restore the whip in the morning. And then I would stand down in the afternoon; not the next day, not the next week, but in the afternoon. And I felt that was designed to humiliate me," the MP explained.
The Labour spokesperson said Abbott “continues to be an inspiration to many” and that the party values her “significant contribution to public life”.
They said: “There is no doubt she has received the most abuse of any MP just because of her gender and the colour of her skin, and that is completely reprehensible and wrong.
“The party, including Keir Starmer, vocally condemned Frank Hester’s vile comments and reached out to Diane at the time to offer support.”
